Rich=s Ramblings
By
Rich Schinnell
Well, another in the long line of trials and travels
that I have endured over the past 20 some years in the PC arena. I am now running Windows XP, I have both
the Professional version and the Home edition. Each works fine on high end
hardware. If you think you might
want to upgrade to Windows XP, You might want to make sure that the hardware you
have will work fine with it. Microsoft has a web site that will let you know
whether your hardware will support XP.
Use this web site
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/default.asp or just go to MICROSOFT.COM and check out the
software and hardware that you have to determine whether it is ok for Windows
XP.
Words Of Wisdom from Rich:
At least a Pentium III at 700MHZ with 256Megbytes of
RAM and 20-40 Gigabytes of Hard disk are about the minimum that I would even
consider. Clean installs with NO old 16 bit cards installed is easiest and much
less aggravation. (That means mostly PCI cards)
One thing that I do like about WindowsXP is that it
has been pretty well bullet proof for me. I do a lot of strange things on my
computers and in the past, there was many a red switch time. But now I am much more confident in
installing software. One nice
feature in Windows XP is the ability to be able to save your existing
configuration and then you have a recovery point to be able to get your system
back working again. Of course your
mileage may vary.:) The old three fingered salute still works as in the old dos
days, but a bit different. It now brings up a menu where you can Kill the
process that is giving you fits, or you can shut-down the computer. Whatever you
wish.
I have been helping the Centers for the Handicapped:
HTTP://WWW.CHICENTERS.ORG with getting some donated computers up to
speed. It is very rewarding and
fulfilling to be able to help people that need my style of expertise. Ever since I retired from CPCUG and the
help line, my phone line ringing has gone down about 90%. So now I can
concentrate on helping those organizations that can use my help. Consider donating some time and
expertise to a Non-Profit as it will help your ego. They really appreciate your help and
send you thank-you letters all the time.<G> I don=t need any more letters but I do get a warm fuzzy helping
them.
New
subject:
I decided to use the Aspam filter@ that is setup on CPCUG.ORG for those of us who use
CPCUG.ORG E-Mail accounts. I
figured that it would help to reduce quite a few of the extraneous messages that
I receive each day. (Sometimes I get between 30 and 50 spam messages a day) The
old DEL key sure works great, but I got tired of reading messages with the
titles obscured in some weird way in the hopes that I would open the email. (And
you know what opening some E-Mail does, don=t you?
It lets the spammer know that you read their E-Mail) I of course use Eudora
Professional for my E-Mail with the options to NOT download HTML (Hyper Text
Markup Language) code when reading messages. This way, they never know that I read
their E-Mail.
Continuing on, I set-up the
spam filter on CPCUG.ORG in accordance with the instructions and noticed an
immediate reduction in E-Mail. A
couple of days later, I decided to log on to my Shell account, (that is Unix
talk for the Unix dos prompt) and take a look at the spam filtered messages, Was
I surprised. Many of the messages were from friends and relatives who just
happened to use an ISP that evidently was banned by the Internet Gods. I of course was glad that I was able to
read them. And of course there were
several messages with the get rich quick and get your sex pills here types. I finally decided that it was just too
much trouble to use the spam filter on CPCUG.ORG and turned it off. So just remember that there are
prices to pay for some of the options.
Check out HTTP://WWW.CPCUG.ORG/MAILFILT/
IF you are interested and
have an account with shell on CPCUG.ORG give it a try. If you buy anything from AMAZON.COM, you
will never receive an acknowledgment from them as AMAZON.COM is on the banned list. Many ISP=s (Internet Service Providers) who somehow ended up
being hi-jacked by some spammer are now on the list. Even if they eventually
cleared their name, they are still on the list for quite a while. So beware and
check your filtered E-Mail for stuff you might really want to
see.
On Saturday the 6th of April I was very
pleasantly surprised at the turnout for the Help CHI day at Lone Oak Center.
Quite a few CPCUG volunteers showed up along with our exalted CPCUG president.
(And I really don=t need any brownie points) :) With a bit of
pre-planning and the great cooperation of PowerQuest Corporation and their rep
Gene Barlow, who was nice enough a couple of years ago to donate a copy of Drive
Image Professional. I had created
image disks for each of the two main types of computers that we were going to
check out and setup. CHI had
donated to them about 50 computers which included a mix of DELL and COMPAQ
Pentium and Pentium II computers.
Having made image files for each of them by actually installing windows
98 Second Edition on 1 of each. I was then able to make an image of each, put
them on a bootable CD-ROM and from those each of the computers were setup in
about 15-20 minutes each instead of the normal 60-90 minutes when you have to
FDISK, FORMAT and then run setup to install Windows 98. All the volunteers were pleased at how
smoothly things went. I highly
recommend the Drive Image program from PowerQuest. Great product.
http://www.powerquest.com/driveimage/index.html is where you can find out more about Drive Image.
This is not a review of Drive Image, just a practical usage for a good product.
It worked.!
(PS: CHI has licenses for
each of the computers we installed Windows 98SE on)
Each of these completed
computers were destined for CHI group homes where individuals live in community
home atmosphere. With computers they learn about lots of new
things.
Now that CD-R/RW drives are getting pretty cheap,
you might want to think about backing up your data to CD. Remembering that CD/R and CD/RW are
different formats. The CD/R format in most cases is readable by most any
computers CD-ROM reader. The CD/RW
is a format where the CD-ROM disk is capable of being written to in stages,
i.e.. Similar to a regular floppy diskette. The newer DVD has R and R/W options
also, The blanks look similar but the DVD types of CD-ROMS are much more
expensive. The two types of disks
are different, if you buy the CD/R blanks they normally are written to one time
and that=s it.
The CD/RW are re-writable. The DVD formats/standards for writing them are
still not 100% settled, be wary of buying a DVD/R or R/W as you might be buying
the last of the old standard. Personally I am going to wait before I get into
DVD writing.
An old friend and supporter
of CPCUG, Mark Minasi has a web site and his opinions are worth listening
to. HTTP://WWW.MINASI.COM Is the site you might want to take a
look at. Mark is a word renowned
writer and lecturer. He used to put
on seminars for CPCUG which were well received. He was a member of our software library
committee back in the middle 1980's.
Marks books are treated as bibles on computers by many people that I
know. Check his web site out and subscribe to his newsletter.
.
Rich Schinnell is one of
those guys that has been around CPCUG since day one. Rich is a CPCUG Past
President, Vice President, Sig Leader and about the only positions that he did
not serve in were Treasurer and Editor. (there has to be a message in there
someplace:) He has retired from the
USN, Vitro Corporation and most of his other day jobs. He now has less time to spare than when
he was really working
He has a few clients that just won=t let go and keep him on retainer to keep them out
of trouble.
Rich can be reached at (301) 949-9292 when you
can=t get him to reply to your email at schinnel@cpcug.org.
My web page is at HTTP://SCHINNELL.ORG
P.P.S.: Remember to Backup
your data TODAY!!!!